TOP 10 TOOLS 2008
Don Simmons

I teach algebra to middle school students in Sugar Land, Texas. At 65, I have many classroom years under my belt. My classroom has some pretty good technology including a ceiling mounted projector, a document camera, and a class set of TI graphing calculators. I also have had the option of a SmartBoard and four student computers. Because the nature of my subject and my teaching style, I have rejected them.

Over the past ten to fifteen years I have used the web in many ways to extend/enhance my classroom. Currently I maintain a website that my students use as a resource on a regular basis.

I find these tools are the ones I use on a regular basis. All are free (I am a teacher after all). The order of the list does not indicate preference.

Don's Top 10 Tools as at 6 February 2008

1. Website Baker
   An open-source content-management system that is extremely easy to use. This CMS is just the right size for a small to medium-sized website. My own site has about 50 to 60 pages with the pages constantly being changed.
    
2. Filezilla
   This is an open-source FTP program with a very nice screen and interface. It is visually comfortable with the computer's directory on the left and my website's directory on the right. Files are moved with simple drag-and-drop.
    
3. HTML-KIT
   This is my web editing software. There are possibly more plug-ins available for HTML-KIT than all other editors combined. No matter what you want to do with your website, HTML-KIT has a plug-in to help you do it easier.
    
4. JustZIPit
   There are any number of file compressing programs available. I like this one for its simplicity. Just a click, and a file or folder is unzipped. Compressing files and folders is just as easy.
    
5. Firefox
   There is not much I can add to what has been said about Firefox. Plug-ins make it even better. I particularly like ColorfulTabs and the various tools for help with website development.
    
6. GMail
   I started using GMail after some never-ending battles with spam. Not only is the spam gone, but GMail has a nice clean interface and a ton of free storage. With groups and labels, it is easy to put together mailing lists and retrieve specific e-mails that are archived. Even though the providers for my two websites provide multiple e-mail accounts, I find that I use GMail exclusively.
    
7. Google Calendar
   One of the main reasons I like Google Calendar is that it was easy to embed into my website. I put all the student assignments and other events on the calendar.  Color coding allows a quick visual cue so that students (and parents) can easily distinguish scheduled quizzes and tests, daily assignments, and other events.
    
8. Zoho
   Zoho is a rather complete web-based office suite that I like better than Google Documents. It has a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, database, wiki, note-taker, planner, and even a project manager. I can build a Powerpoint-style presentation and embed it directly into my website with ease. I recommend it to my students for collaboration on group projects.
    
9. Open Office
   I don't use Open Office often, but it does a great job of converting Powerpoints to PDF format for putting on the website.
    
10. Amberjack Tour Wizard
    This is a neat little service that let's you create a tour of your website. If you have a number of features you want to make sure people know about, this program is great. It creates a script that allows you to move from page to page with a little description for each page.